In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“A Gossip on Romance,” Longman’s Magazine (Nov 1882)

Full text.


 
Added on 30-Jul-09 | Last updated 30-Jul-09
Link to this post | No comments
More quotes by Stevenson, Robert Louis

Thoughts? Comments? Corrections? Feedback?